We know from the research coming out of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute that giving circles are growing, and women’s giving circles in particular are on the rise. But what does a giving circle really look like on the ground? How do they make decisions that are well-informed and that carry out the group’s intentions?

When I attended the first meeting of the NEID Giving circle in January of 2017, the sense I got from the group was that their passion for international giving was aligning, in the wake of the Trump presidency, with an awareness that more needed to be done to lift up women and address gender equality. The group expressed both a desire for more collaboration in philanthropy on the ground (the giving circle model) as well as a desire to stretch their reach internationally.

[Emily Nielsen] Jones described how the giving circle shifted into a different mode when it came time to land the plane and decide where to give the grants.

We just got started without knowing 100% how we would shift from getting to know one another and learning about the global gender terrain to the actual proposal vetting process. In sort of an organic way, we came up with a process that felt right and ‘narrowed the funnel’ of so many incredible organizations to a shortlist we felt good about making grants to.”

People seemed to get more engaged in the process, and excited about the process, as the NEID Giving Circle moved toward decision time, and all that excitement appeared to bring most members to feeling very good about their giving — confident that the vote represented their intentions quite well.

Read the full article by Kiersten Marek about giving circles from Philanthropy Women